Farming Science

According to Bolens, Muslim farming owed its success to:

‘The adoption of agrarian techniques to local needs,’ and to ‘a
spectacular cultural union of scientific knowledge from the past
and the present, from the Near East, the Maghrib
, and Andalusia. A culmination
more subtle than a simple accumulation of techniques, it has
been an enduring ecological success, proven by the course of
human history.’[1]

This
success followed two guiding principles: experimentation, and
diffusion of acquired knowledge.
Levi Provencal observes that
Muslim farming literature although suffering an unjust neglect
on the part of scholarship, is the only literature which has a
‘flavour of the land.’[2]
Ibn Wahshiya quarrelled openly with earlier authorities when
their recommendations were not borne out by experiment.[3]Ibn Bassal, who was gardening in
Toledowhen it fell to
Christian conquerors in 1085, wrote almost exclusively from his
own direct experience.[4]
Ibn al-Awwam writes, ‘I affirm
nothing which seems right to me without having proven it in
numerous experiments.'[5]
For this purpose he cultivated a short distance from Seville
, a farmland called ‘Alxarafe'.[6]
HisKitab al Filaha (Book of Agriculture) was a
culmination of both practice and observation, and of high
technical interest.[7]
Relying on
his own experience, Ibn al-Awwam covers a wide diversity of
subjects,[8]studying up to 585 plants, the
cultivation of fruit trees, grafting, soil properties, manure,
and plant diseases and their treatments.[9]
He also studies irrigation, affinities between trees, animal
husbandry and bee keeping.[10]
In his treatise are also
found plants now extinct, as well as traditional agricultural
practices now phased out.[11]
And far from being dated, in the late 19th century,
that is eight centuries after it was completed, it was
deemed relevant to the Mediterraneanfarming environment, and
so was published in both Spanish and French.[12]
Ibn al-Awwam’s countryman, Ali Ibn Farah, also experimented with
botanical gardens in the most inaccessible parts of southern
Spain, and created a botanical
garden in Guadix.[13]
In Sicily
, Bresc notes, the many
techniques described or suggested in the contracts of the 14th
and 15th century were found in Muslim farming
manuals.[14]
Many ploughing methods to prepare the soil, the use of
fertilisers, planting, etc, are also found to be shared by
Sicilian agriculture and such manuals.[15]
It is the sort of information found in
Al-Ichbili’s Kitab al-Filaha,
which goes into minute detail on how to grow olive trees,
treatments for tree diseases, grafting, harvesting olives,
refining olive oil, conditioning of olives, etc; or cotton, its
required soil properties, soil preparation, use of manure,
ploughing techniques, the time of the year for planting,
irrigation, care for plants, harvesting etc.[16]

A major contribution to the advance of farming was the focused
study by such farming manuals on specific crops. This is
highlighted here with respect to cotton,[17]
sugar cane,[18]
and rice.[19]
Cotton is sometimes grown without resort to irrigation, but in
the Islamic world it was heavily irrigated. Qustus al-Rumi says
it requires continuous irrigation, and Ibn Luyun states that it
needs weekly watering.[20]
According to Ibn Bassal, there are two systems of growing cotton
in the Islamic world: the Spanish system, by which the plant is
irrigated every fifteen days after it reaches a finger’s height,
and the Syrian system, by which the land is irrigated once
before planting, again when the plant has reached the height of
the palm of the hand, and thereafter every fifteen days until
the middle of August.[21]

Extracts from a description by Ibn al-Awwam of sugar cane
planting is an excellent illustration of the meticulous
attention to detail. It says:

‘According to the book of Ibn Hajaj, the cane is planted from
its roots on March 20th. As for the rest, it is
necessary for it (according to the opinion common among the
farmers in
Spain) to have low, sunny land
which has water near at hand. So it is planted from its own
roots, and also from its own cane, having made the soil
previously very mellow with three different spadings, or with
ten plough shares, tooth cultivators (as others like),
fertilising with a heavy layer of good, light decomposed manure
(or with Boniga as others call it) and dividing into
squares of 10 codos (1 codo is 18 inches) long and 5 codos wide.
If the planting is made with roots, says Hajaj, the Granadan,
having dug and made the corresponding holes in these squares, in
them are planted cuttings at distances of a codo and half apart,
and are covered with soil and manure to the thickness of three
fingers; they are irrigated every fourth day and when grown to
the height of a hand are cultivated well, and manured with a
heavy layer of sheep dung and continued irrigation every eight
days until the beginning of October, from which month irrigation
is stopped. For the planting in which canes are used, one has to
select the canes with the most joints and the thickest ones,
because the first will give the most shoots and the second is
more juicy. These canes freshly cut, or soon after, are placed
completely in the earth, leaving them there till the beginning
of March, from where they are taken out, then cut into pieces of
two hands in length and of three joints (or according to some of
six joints) each. These are trimmed with tools and are then
planted in the above mentioned areas, covering four nodes of
them at a distance of one codo apart, and sprinkling them
afterwards with Boniga, which is carried out in the
Autumn about September or about December, or some say, irrigate
them continuously till they germinate.’[22]

With
regard to rice, we find an extremely
vast literature, which Canard has proficientlyoutlined in an article in French, and which can now be
found in an excellent English translation.[23]
Muslim authors such as Ibn Khurradadhbih (d. 912) inform us
about the regions where rice is grown, its surface areas, the
quantities produced, etc.[24]
We are also told how rice is grown. Rice is a summer crop, and
depends much more than winter crops on irrigation being
available.[25]
According to Ibn al-Awwam, however, rice may be sown twice a
year.[26]
Muslim works give numerous details on how to choose the right
soil to grow it in, on the right way of planting, thinning out,
watering, and cutting and threshing it, on the right time of the
year for planting, etc.[27]
Planting rice requires minute preparation: first the grains of
rice had to be left to swell in a jar of water which had to
stand in the sun during the day and to be covered with dung
during the night, then the swollen grains of rice had to be sown
into squares of land, sheltered by high walls and manured
appropriately.[28]
These had to be watered in moderation, once every week. Thinning
out the rice had to be done with particular care: the rice would
be plucked before sunrise, then stored in a covered basket until
evening, when it would be planted out. It then had to be watered
until August.[29]
Diverse authors advise on matters relating to the crop.
Ibn Bassal advises on the choice of soil, its preparation, the
use of manure, and time for planting, whilst Al-Ichbilli dwells
on the amount to be sown on any given surface, and the manner it
ought to be done.[30]
Ibn al-Awwam focuses on irrigation, timing, and the amount of
water needed at any given phase, as well as its frequency. Field
drainage, fighting pests, clearance of weeds etc, are elaborated
upon; and so are harvest, storage and even culinary uses of the
commodity.[31]
There is a great variety of rice recipes described by Muslim
authors. Ibn Battuta,
for instance, states that in the region of
Mogadishu, in Somalia, a stew
made from chicken, meat, fish and vegetables, which is also
called Kushan, is poured over the rice.[32]
The best culinary stories and anecdotes on the subject are
provided by the great al-Jahiz (ca. 776-868), in his Kitab
al-Bukhala (Book of Misers).[33]
He describes, for instance, the way in which a miser treated his
guests on his estate near Basra: he
gave them rice bread and fish, which the guests themselves had
to catch in the canal on the estate; another miser offered so
little rice to his guests, that one such guest commented that if
he had wanted to count the grains, that would have been easy as
there were so few and separate; and in another instance, the
rice was so badly cooked, or left uncooked, that the guests made
a lot of noise chewing the grains.[34]
Remarkably, we find an account by the Muslim geographer, Yaqut
al-Hamawi (d. 1229), stating that the heat and steam from the
large number of ovens in which rice bread is baked in the
province of Khuzistan (50,000), causes a rise in the temperature
of the country, the first case of global warming, raised by a
Muslim geographer in the early 13th century.[35]

Central to the advance of farming was productive rotation of
crops. Here, too, Islamic expertise developed centuries ahead of
other regions, and was abundantly developed in literature.
Where various rotations are given, Ibn Al-Awwam, for instance,
explains that, contrary to ancient practice, wheat should not be
grown in successive years on the same land but should be
followed in rotation with barley and other crops.[36]
Bolens shows how Islamic farming insists on the importance of
legumes, turnips, trimester wheat and cash crops.[37]
Among the sequences found by Bolens in the manuscript of Abu
al-Khair is the following: turnips, flax, broad beans, barley,
wheat.[38]

Muslim expertise also
stretched to methods of fighting insect pests, use of
fertilizers, grafting trees, crossing plants to produce new
varieties, etc.[39]
On grafting alone, according to
Scott, the Spanish Muslims
employed eight distinct methods. Muslims, according to him, were
also able to treat with success diseases of all known species of
‘the vegetable kingdom;’ and were exceedingly skilful in the
distillation and refining of essences, and the cultivation of
great plantations of flowers for the sake of the exquisite
perfumes they afforded, and in preserving fruits for an
indefinite period.[40]
Horticultural improvements, Sarton notes, constitute one of the
finest legacies of Islam, and the gardens of
Spain
proclaim to this day one of the noblest virtues of the Muslims.[41]
Many indices, Bresc says, allow the formulation of the
hypothesis that the technical legacy of the gardeners of the
Palermoplains has been
inherited from the Islamic period, and also brings closer
Sicilian horticulture to that of Andalusia.[42]

Crucial to farming life is the almanach, the first known to us
being the famed ‘Calendar of Cordova of 961.’[43]
Its
Latintext was first published
by Libri in 1838,[44]
whilst its Arabic text was edited by Dozy in 1873. Levi
Provencal views the Calendar as the most precious of all
treatises in the field, even if it is the oldest of the sort.[45]
Its technical accuracy is ‘remarkable,’ and much of what it
contains was to be found in subsequent geography books and
farming treatises. It highlights the role of each month of the
year, March, for instance, the month for fig tree grafting, and
early cereal planting. It is also the month for planting sugar
cane and sowing cotton and saffron. March is when pre-season
roses and lilacs come out; when quails make their appearance;
silk worms hatch; and mullets journey up rivers from the sea.
During this month mail orders for the purchase of horses for the
government are sent to provincial officials; and also locusts
first appear and their destruction is ordered. It is the time to
plant lime and marjoram, too. It is also the mating season of
many birds.[46]

Going back to the matter of impact, this calendar also has
Yemeni origin, confirming patterns observed above on the Yemeni
pioneering role in farming. The
Yemen,
indeed, had an established calendar in use for agricultural and
activities as reported by al-Hamdani, about 900.[47]

There is also an interesting calendar by al-Makrisi
(Al-Makrizi), which notes under the month of November, for
instance:

‘On the 7th of this month cutting of the cane for the
presses begins… after the old and sickly animals have been sold
and others more vigorous have been bought, as well as reeds and
straw for the boiling house. The workpeople are employed in the
manufacture of abloudjats, funnels and the vases destined for
the sugar and molasses.’[48]

For December, he writes:

‘Cane crushing begins and sugar boilers are engaged. Lands are
planted with cane and colocasia. Dykes are opened at the end of
this month. The best cane is crushed after having reserved
enough for seed. The construction of sakiats (irrigating
machines) is pushed on.’[49]

Muslim authors devoted vast interest to the study of plants,
their composition, structure, and also their uses for medicinal
purposes. Al-Dinawari (d. 895) deals with a wide variety of
plants, and describes their transformations and changes during
their growth. From his predecessors, he derives knowledge on
aromatic plants, plants used in dyes and for other purposes.[50]
He also devotes one chapter to the classification of plants (tajnis
al-nabat).[51]
Ibn
Wahshiya's Filaha Nabatiyya (Nabatean Agriculture),[52]
one of the earliest of the sort, makes a comprehensive
classification of plants.[53]
Another early work on the subject is the anonymous Umdat
al-tabib fi ma'rifat al-nabat li-kull labib, which was a
pioneering attempt at the classification of plants by genus (jinse),
species (naw) and variety (sanf).[54]
Ibn Baja (d.
1138,) in Kitab al-nabat (liber de
Plantis) also deals with the physiology of plants, whilst
emphasising their infinite variety. Ibn Wafid Majmu’ fi’l Filaha
(Compendium of Farming) focuses on the naming and uses of many
of the new plants being introduced into Spain.
The geographer Ibn Battuta(d.1377), as he recounts
his travels, offers extremely detailed descriptions of plants,
fruit and vegetation of India
, Java, the Maldives, etc.[55]
He includes the common: apricots, quince, grapes, watermelons,
sweet oranges etc, but also the exotic: coconuts, mango trees,
cinnamon, Brazil nut, benzoin, camphor and clove amongst others.[56]

Experimental gardens were the privileged setting for adapting
and studying plants.
It was in Muslim Spain in the 11th Century, that the first royal
botanical gardens of Europe
made their appearance, five centuries ahead of similar ones in
Western Christendom.[57]
These were both pleasure gardens and also trial grounds for the
acclimatization of plants brought from the Near and Middle East.[58]
Royal and experimental botanical
gardens were often in the charge of leading scientists.
In Spain, agronomists had at their
disposal botanical gardens and trial grounds where they
experimented with exotic plants, and tried to create new
varieties of fruit and flowers.[59]
The literature around this subject, Armesto notes, is prolific.
A veritable school of court gardeners flourished, unparalleled
elsewhere in the medieval West.[60]
They knew each other and read each other’s works, and dealt with
practical agriculture.[61]
Their common background was in royal patronage, their common
formation in the lush experimental gardens of powerful sybarites
in Toledoand Seville,
where they were employed on every project that might enhance
luxury, from concocting compost to inventing recipes for foie
gras.[62]
They were learned men and keen, practical gardeners, too.[63]
Hence, Al-Tignari,
the author of a farming manual, made botanical gardens for a
Spanish Taifa king and then for the Almoravid prince Tamim.[64]
In the garden of a sultan of
Seville, the anonymous author of a
botanical treatise domesticated rare plants and acclimatized
exotic ones.[65]
In the 12th century the botanist and physician
al-Shafran collected plants from many outlying regions of Spain for the garden of an Almohad
sultan at Guadix.[66]
The Huerta del Rey in Toledo was
directed by two of
Spain's leading agronomists:
Ibn Bassal and Ibn Wafid, both of whom carried out agricultural
experiments and wrote important manuals of farming.
Ibn Bassal eventually fled from Toledo
in 1085, when it was captured by Alfonso VI of
Castile, for
Seville, to the court of Al-Mutamid for
whom he created a new royal garden.[67]

The gardens of the medieval Islamic world, and particularly the
royal gardens, were, according to Watson, places where business
was mixed with pleasure and science with art.[68]
These gardens linked together the agricultural and botanical
activities of distant regions, and played one of greatest roles
in the diffusion of useful plants.[69]
Only many centuries later did Europe
possess similar botanical gardens which helped to make it the
same kind of medium for plant diffusion that the Islamic world
had been in the middle ages.[70]
The earliest botanical gardens in Europe appear to have been
planted by Matthaeus Sylvaticus in Salerno (c.1310) and by
Gualterius in Venice (c.1330), but only in the 16th
and 17th centuries did other European cities and
universities follow suit: Pisa: in 1543; Padua, Parma and
Florence in 1545; Bologna in 1568; Leyden in 1577; Leipzig in
1580; Konigsberg in 1581; Paris (le Jardin Royal du Louvre) in
1590; Oxford in 1621 etc.[71]

[12]
J. Vernet and J. Samso: Development of Arabic Science in
Andalusia, in The Encyclopaedia(Rashed
ed), op cit; pp 243-76; at p. 263.
The Spanish translation in 1802 in two volumes was the
work of Don Josef Antoine Banqueri. The French version
was
Ibn Awwam Le Livre de l'agriculture,
by Clement-Mullet; in 3 vols, (Paris 1864-1867).